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Yes, I agree with you again. The author of this post is just one person. I am not saying whether he should or shouldn’t name this person or link to a web page t

Yes, I agree with you again. The author of this post is just one person. I am not saying whether he should or shouldn’t name this person or link to a web page that appears to be an essay submitted as part of course work. I am only speaking to what we should do in response, namely laugh uproariously at what appears to be a finely crafted piece of work, and use it as a catalysts for serious discussion about where our institutions of higher education are failing, and eschew debating this named person’s crimes or character. I think the essay would be just as thought-provoking if it left the person’s name out, it would still pose difficult and important questions: How does such an essay get accepted? If someone cheats and gets a degree, how do they prosper in life? Should there be a correlation between honest work on a degree and success? If not, why do we care about the degree? How much of submitting an essay is composing the essay, and how much is mechanically rearranging existing ideas into a form that passes the professorial filter? Is there a Turing Test going on here? If a professor can’t tell the original works apart from the plagiarized ones, is the test flawed, or is there really no distinction between the good and bad students? I really like the post, it provides much grist for my Olde Mill, which lies just west of the Forest of Runnymede.

InclinedPlane 15y ago
Indeed. For myself I prefer to be as open minded and forgiving of others as possible. In this particular case the evidence seems rather damning, but there can always be plenty we aren't aware of, life is complicated. Personally I hope the accused can recover from this, though in general I think that if more college students realized that the shame of plagiarism could come back and bite them in the ass later in life that would probably be a good thing. College isn't play time. Nor should it be training wheels for adulthood.
DanBC 15y ago
> If someone cheats and gets a degree, how do they prosper in life? You work in tech? You've seen countless idiots who blatantly lie to get jobs? You've seen them get promoted (so they can no longer do harm, or because they're really good at lying) while talented people have to stick around to fix the problems and carry the slack? Cheats prosper.

InclinedPlane 15y ago

Indeed. For myself I prefer to be as open minded and forgiving of others as possible. In this particular case the evidence seems rather damning, but there can always be plenty we aren't aware of, life is complicated. Personally I hope the accused can recover from this, though in general I think that if more college students realized that the shame of plagiarism could come back and bite them in the ass later in life that would probably be a good thing. College isn't play time. Nor should it be training wheels for adulthood.

DanBC 15y ago

> If someone cheats and gets a degree, how do they prosper in life? You work in tech? You've seen countless idiots who blatantly lie to get jobs? You've seen them get promoted (so they can no longer do harm, or because they're really good at lying) while talented people have to stick around to fix the problems and carry the slack? Cheats prosper.